CO129-471 - Public Offices - 1921 — Page 107

I

"The cultivation of the poppy plant in Fukien

is no longer any inducement to smuggle opit bmosa and that this form of the traffic has consi

The Monopoly Bur. r the time being come to an end.

raised prices in proportion to the cost of raw opi said that it has made up for this by reducing th bage of morphine in the opium sold locally from, say

This renders the opium prepared for (sent to 2 per cent, legal market less able than ever to compete with Chinese ́opiam in China, since the morphine content of the latter is said to be as high as ten per cent, and the higher the mor - pine content is, up to a certain point, the more the drug

peals to the opium smoker's palate. It is indeed alleged

that

in order to compete with this Chinese product, the

poly prepares a special opium with a high morphine content

for the Chinese trade and that this is smuggled across to

Aney through the agency of certain large Formosan business

houses established in that port and that the latter derive

their principal profits from this trade. I mention this report

for what it is worth as a matter of general interest, but,

Mhough it was given to me on fairly good authority, my own

monal belief, in the absence of corroboratory evidense, is

that the story iạ untrue,

Leaving the question of the traffig in opium itself, I now come to the more important question of the disposal of

ite derivative, morphine. In my despatch Ho. 22 above quoted I stated that I was awaiting the receipt of certain inf before sending in my report to Your Excellency upon this whole matter. The information in question was an explanation of the Uccountable discrepancy between the assertions of the Mono- ely Bureau officials and the published annual Customs sætistics, referred to in the enclosed memorandum on the sub. et of a visit to the opium fastery of the Monopoly Bu

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